Mark Burrows: So this is the, the noise I was talking about, like it's a vibrating table that takes these won be bonbons, but she fills them with chocolate and that's what doing here. But then she has to dump all the chocolate out the vibrating table.
Walking into the Pollinator shop is like walking into a cloud of chocolate smell. The walls are covered in pictures of a cocoa plantation in the Dominican Republic where chocolate maker and store founder Mark Burrows sources some of his cocoa beans. Behind the coffee counter is a glass wall, and through it you can see chocolatier, Autymn Sanders creating bonbons. All the chocolate is made in house and Burrows selects beans from all over the world for their unique notes and flavor profile.
Burrows: So then they'll take from here first, the raw beans are roasted, and then they undergo a rapid cooling process. What this does is in this hopper, it forces all the beans to go through this little device here, which is the cracker. So it cracks the beans into little little bits. So if you take a bean like this and crack it open, and inside is the nib. So that's the nib part. That's what we want, that's what chocolate is. Then there's a husk, the shell.
The roasted cacao nib tastes fruity and rich. It's hard to make the connection to a Kit Kat or a Butterfinger. These chocolate nibs, which Burrows says are the healthiest way to enjoy chocolate, now go into the melanger, which looks like a big pot with two grinding wheels, where they achieve the smooth consistency that we can more easily recognize as one of America's most popular treats. As the machinery hums along Burrows explains that chocolate has a surprising number of health benefits.
Burrows: When people eat chocolate, they always experience, they talk about the experience of the feeling of wellbeing, like feeling happy and mood-elevated. Mostly because of theobromine, which is a stimulant similar to coffee, except coffee will take you up and drop you off the cliff. But theobromine takes you up not nearly as far and levels out, and gently drops you off. So [it's] a stimulator that... but in the vasodilator effect, it just means expanding your blood vessels a little bit more, so you get more blood flow through. And so when your blood flow's going really well you feel good.
Cocoa beans are a high-demand product, but they can only be grown throughout a thin belt on either side of the equator. And cocoa trees are a finicky crop. They don't like to be planted in rows, require high humidity as well as high drainage, and are naturally pollinated only by tiny gnats that live in the surrounding soil. So sourcing high-quality cocoa beans that come from ethical practices can be a challenge, but Burrows says Pollinator won't compromise on either. But there is another challenge to the chocolate business, one that might have ramifications further down the line.
Burrows: 65% of the world's chocolate is grown in two countries, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire in Africa. About two years ago, they were hit hard by flooding and then drought. The drought prevented anything [from] growing, so it killed a lot of trees, and the flooding came along and killed a lot of trees. They drowned, and then they were hit by disease after that. So literally 65% of the world's chocolate did not grow in 2023.
So 65% of the chocolate just did not exist. So supply and demand- it's on the commodity stock market as sold as the future. Suddenly, the prices went from about below $2,000 per metric ton, which is like a pallet. It's about eight of those bags, eight to 10 of those bags to.. it was shot as high as $12,000 per metric ton.
It's sitting around $8,500 per metric ton today. So chocolate went up by a factor of four, and it's kind of stabilizing out there. It's up and down because it's stock market. So what one of those bags usually cost me $300 or $400 now cost me $1,200.
After all of these trees died, Burrows predicted that the cost of regular grocery store chocolate would go up, but it didn't. The big commodity chocolate companies had warehouses full of stores, but a few years out, he says they're starting to run low. Pollinator has been able to survive these hardships for a few reasons. Their cocoa comes from all over the world, and luxury chocolate already sells at a higher price point.
Burrows: I'm a fine flavor chocolate maker, which means I buy beans from very specific places in the world because of their flavor content as opposed to buying beans.
This gets even more complicated with genetics and different varieties of beans, but I'm looking for a more rare variety, which is more expensive because it's more rare as opposed to what's available. Worldwide, but it's just like very, what we call base note. If you like chocolate, go to town. Yeah, that's all you're gonna get out of it. Mine has nuances of strawberries, cherries, coconut, and lemon. All these crazy flavors that you would never expect from chocolate.
We exit the glass-encased chocolate-making room and sit at the coffee counter. Burroughs brings out a number of little treasure tests, each marked with a different country and an adjective wheel to help me describe what I'm tasting.
Burrows: This is Tanzania.
KDNK: Which one's your favorite?
Burrows: Like the old joke, my favorite one, the best one is- it's the ones in front of me, but I love the Tanzania. It's very bright to me [and] Cceamy.
KDNK: It is very creamy.
Burrows: I get oranges out of this, very strong oranges.
KDNK: It is really fruity
Burrows: And that's why I like it. You're not gonna find that in the grocery store. And the final one, this is Zorzal, which is the Dominican Republic, you see the photos on the wall.
Pollinator's small but dedicated staff of six continues to operate the shop seven days a week and run chocolate tasting classes. Burrows hopes to expand into bigger events like painting and pairing classes, or bonbon creation. And while all that sounds like a good time, I have never needed an excuse to eat more chocolate.
